2026-02-03, 10:20–11:10, D.Aud
The first two decades of the 21st Century were a Gilded Age for open source, and the tech industry, with all that implies. That age is over, and open source is now entering a new era; the available resources for open source development are declining, with corporate layoffs, shifting priorities, the adoption of source-available licensing, and developer burnout all taking a toll.
What comes now is uncertain; open source is here to stay, but in what form?
Open source has enjoyed immense success during the first quarter (or so) of the 21st century. It has gone from a niche development model to a dominant part of the technology industry; it has enabled the rise of major tech companies that have, in turn, funded open source development and courted the favor of the open source community.
However, the open source honeymoon seems to be over. Budgets have been slashed, entire teams of open source maintainers have been cut with little warning, and many companies are more interested in picking over the bones of open source repositories to feed large-language models than helping to fund open source maintenance.
This talk will look at the history of open source's gilded age, examine its current state, and provide a glimpse into likely futures.
Joe Brockmeier has been working with, and writing about, Linux and open source for more than 25 years. He is a member of the Apache Software Foundation, and has contributed to a number of open source projects, including Apache Cloudstack, Fedora, openSUSE, and others. Brockmeier is currently an editor with LWN.net.